Toy Fare unfortunately influences people and gives them hope something they bought at the store can be sold for more...

I don't see my statement as hostile unless you took offense to me saying what the thing is worth I guess, but to me that's simply a fact. It's shipping, it's not actually even that difficult to find at retail, so I say $6.99 is it's worth.

Some nut in a magazine giving people false hope because he can't find one isn't really good advice in my book, but that's me. Toy Fare's a fine mag to read but their basis for prices is generally nowhere near what most people actually pay, not to mention they tend to over-inflate prices on currently shipping merchandise as well, so their "value" ratings are incredibly off-scale to me. I know I never follow them for anything.

OK, that's fine and dandy. but what makes your word and or ideal towards it LAW?

is there any proof to these statements?

its not like i don't agree on some scale, heres a scenario. i bought three raiders of the lost ark action MOC Indy,Nazi Indy, and belloq for $35.00 total back in '97 . toyfare at the time estimates put all three worth about five hundred. i sit on them until two months ago, sold em on ebay and ended up getting $212. pretty good considering it was x-mas money from gramps back in '97 that paid for them.

now is it the appearance of ebay or the rumblings of indy IV that dropped the worth or was it toyfare?

my opinion it was all of the first two, same case with starwars figures worth at the end of the '90s, of course all of which kinda dropped back down to earth with creation of new figures and lets not forget the repacking.

I'm with Jesse on this one. what the peg says is what its worth. however in terms of vintage figures those have higher value because they are no longer made. but if you see a semi new figure going for $50 its not worth it because the person selling it got it for $6.99 (or 9.99 depending on how north you live) and they are cheap and trying to make money off of desperate buyers. when in comes with your Indy figures that just means that someone who was into the line and missed some figures and wanted to close some lose gaps and were willing to pay that price. doesn't mean it was worth it just someone wanted to buy it.

and besides i saw enough of that r5 dude to say hes not worth $15(probably around $20 Canadian)

and i don't think all the 90's figures have high worth either as toyfair sometimes says. i can find them going for $5Canadian which is half of which the new ones cost and they are supposedly "hard to find".

don't think I'm trying to pick something with you though i am just sharing my opinion.

Logged

School has been on strike all month. so much for the summer job I was hoping to get D:

This is discussing a figure that's currently shipping still to Wal-Mart and Toys R Us (and perhaps KB?), and not been difficult to find. Toy Fare's "values" may be right or they may be wrong. I don't know many people in the vintage SW hobby who'd put much faith at all in the "value" system Toy Fare has for vintage Star Wars... I personally feel that translates then across the board and nothing is a "deciding factor" as to why Toy Fare is wrong other than they always seem to estimate things for a LOT more than what the average collector is willing to pay (IE: One with some common sense and savy about his/her hobby).

I see people pay $15 or $20 for a brand new figure at the local Toy Show every time it rolls around... That doesn't put that figure's actual worth at that price though, at least to me. To me since it's something to be found at retail, retail price is it's actual worth. Anything above that is a fluke in the system.

Vintage... A whole other ball of wax, and that includes your RotLA deal. Old figures obviously have some value above their retail prices... Not always (even generally) in the "modern" line of SW figures of course, but the true vintage that didn't have a strong collector base, that's a fact... So your Raiders figures acrued in value. I don't attribute it to a film, Ebay, or anything else. They were just old and from a line of toys that some people like collecting so they gained in value.

Compared to Ebay, Toy Fare's estimated value of RotLA figures is laughable and I agree with most that say Ebay's your best bet to find the true value/worth of something.

So TF's values they attribute to modern I find even more laughable. They gauge value of something that can still be had fresh from the case at a store, and they place that value at 2 or 3 times the retail cost. Given the "staying power" of modern SW figures in the secondary market in general, I'd say their value estimates might be 4 or 5 times higher than what the item may eventually fetch... That's of course not to say that ALL modern is worthless, but a lot of it is, and when it's still shipping I think that applies double.

And I don't think it's films or anything that dropped the prices of modern SW figures... It's the fact that the market's saturated with it. While actual figures aren't public knowledge, it's pretty well known that production of modern figures is well into the thousands. That alone is reason that Toy Fare's values are comically high, coupled of course with the fact you can walk out on a toy run tonight and find one for $7. That's just common sense to me.

But it's also the crede of collecting communities like here that what you paid is what it's worth... Nobody is supposed to be attempting to make a profit off their SW figures within this site, so it's also assumed you'd be able to grab one of those R5's for its cost on the boards if someone has one available and a plea was put out for one. I know that's at least the ideal situation at most all boards like ours.

Toy Fare's prices are a joke. I alway's laugh at the prices they list, hey this fig is worth $$$. Right, only to the person who bought it & that is what they base it on. The highest price a figure or item was sold for. If the fig is still shipping/selling at retail then that is the price. If someone sells that fig for more on eBay then whatever. Magazine/book prices do not exist IMHO, checking on eBay what they go for sets the example, vintage for one.

Heck, Toy Fare has prices listed for stuff I have or I am still looking for in other areas I collect & I can still find them cheaper.

No kidding. I didn't realize anyone actually used that magazine for pricing. Just look at the completed eBay auctions if you ever want to know the real going market rate on something. As for those R5s, I see them all over the place. $6 - 7 each.

OK, that's fine and dandy. but what makes your word and or ideal towards it LAW?

You asked for people's opinions and that's what we've given you. The only "LAW" around here is that we at JD believe anything currently available at retail is worth the price on the peg. Simple as that.

Nope. The figure is worth whatever someone will pay you for it. Walmart sells the figure for $7 and people hand them the money for it.

Scalpers sell a figure for $15 and people hand them the money for it.

You can say at JD the figure is worth $7, or you can say according to Toyfare it's worth $15. Whichever way you choose to unload the figure, the price is valid.

I'm not supporting scalping, but to say that a figure is just worth what you pay for it off the peg is to be in total denial of the $15-20 price tag that a single carded figure does sell for every day in the secondary market.

Asking a question of "is ________ worth __________?" is unanswerable by that logic though DR, so I think when a question like that is asked, the best answers that can be given to said person are two-fold:

-Check Ebay... Whatever they're selling for is what they're worth.-If it's still shipping, it's worth $7 because that's the cheapest youc an go out and buy it for right now.

Saying, "if it sells for $15 by one guy at some show, it's obviously worth that", is the complete utter simplification of the free market system... Which is fine for an Economics 100 course but there's so many grey areas to argue and things, and it really doesn't answer the question at hand. It just says, "Joe Blow at Toy Fare said it's $15 so it's $15", or "On JD it's $7 because if you sell it for more you're ass is grass around here"...

Like I said, none of that actually answers the question... And what's the point of asking EVERYONE what that figure is worth to them? I think VOTC Chewbacca is "worth" a lot from my collecting mindset... What does that tell you as someone looking for the value of a figure though? Not much at all.